After months of hype and breathless anticipation, the Alibaba Group — China’s answer to eBay and Amazon — raised $25 billionin its market debut in September, setting a record for initial public offerings.

Not three months later, the car-ride start-up Uber raised an eye-popping $1.8 billion, one of the biggest fund-raising rounds in venture capital history.

In other words, it was a very good year for the business of raising money — in either the public or the private markets. Still, investors and advisers are beginning to question whether that performance can be repeated this year.

For the last time the United States was as competitive as it is now, he added, “you have to go back to before the first oil shock in the 1970s.” Of the $3.6 billion in acquisitions by Royal DSM since 2010, 80 percent has come to the United States.

IF there is a boogeyman when it comes to family conversations about inheritance, it is not death. That happens whether people talk about financial plans or not. It’s the $40 trillion that financial advisers say their baby boomer clients are going to pass to their children either in an orderly way — or in a chaotic mess.

President Obama is expected to sign an executive order on Thursday that could make it harder for companies that violate wage, labor and anti-discrimination laws to win federal contracts, administration officials said on Wednesday.

Under the order, Mr. Obama will require federal contractors to disclose any labor violations that their companies committed over the previous three years, with government procurement officials then being advised to steer clear of those with repeated and egregious violations.

Talking about money is hard. Writing well about yourself may be harder still. So trying to do both at once, as a teenager, while addressing complete strangers who control your future, would seem to be foolhardy.

But each year, plenty of high school seniors who are applying to college give it a go. Many skip the story of the sports team triumph or the grandparent’s death and write essays about weighty social issues like work, class and wealth, or lack thereof. Perhaps that’s what affects them most. Or maybe those are the subjects that they think will attract an admissions officer’s eye.

The “digital currency” Bitcoin has attracted the attention of
markets and the general public. Media reports on the virtual
currency have surged, as Bitcoin has experienced large and
sometimes dramatic price swings, and has been affected by
some high-profile difficulties. In this report, we provide an
introduction to Bitcoin—what it is and how it works—the
potential, the problems and the price swings.